A week or two ago on the podcast, I admitted that I might be swayed to buying a Neo this fall (if it exists by this fall) instead of a PSVR. Then I backtracked and said that if PSVR launches with Thumper, I'm going to have to go with the PSVR.

$45.00Includes download code for the game (the game is $20 on its own), a code for a digital copy of the soundtrack and the full soundtrack on vinyl.

Which is just... super-fucking-sexy. But I'm not going to buy it because I don't have a stereo with a turntable hooked up to it.

"Thumper contains nine epic levels playable in both ultra-glossy 2D and fully immersive VR. Over the past few months, we’ve made many enhancements to take full advantage of PS VR. We’ve fine-tuned movement speed, the scale of the game world, and our visual effects to create an overwhelming sense of speed and monumental dread. It’s hard to describe if you’ve never been a space beetle on a screaming hell ride before. But no matter which way you play, we think you’ll feel the violence!"-PS Blog-

So yesterday Alex emails me with what he predicts is the next addition to my Detolf - an action figure of Clem from Telltale's The Walking Dead.

To which I respond

"Only if I stumble across it in a geek store and find it reasonably priced - and even then, I'll probably talk myself out of it."

Alex says

"That's right. you're more of a high end guy."

And I say nothing, because for some reason that made me a bit sad. But no, that's not a great Clem. That's an ugly Clem. Apparently there's a blood-splattered version - which would go higher on my list, naturally - but no, that's not a very good figure.

Then today, a wild Flowers appears:

And that's a holy-shit western figure. So I checked out its site. $55 for the version with Scott peeking out of her bag, $50 without, pay now (I think), and she comes out in early 2017.

I don't know why, but once presented with the (actually entirely reasonable, for its quality) price and the (less than standard for a high-end Japanese figure) long delay before its release stopped me.

This Nendo got rejected for that little grey dot by the nose. Little grey dots are not kewl.

Good Smile are the folks who make the ubiquitous Nendoroids - the poseable, face-plate-swappable and supernaturally-adorable figures of everything from your favorite anime to Nolan North's Dark Knight. Here's a timely example, given Resurrection's launch on Vita today - God Eater's Alisa:

Anyway, a Japanese program went inside the factory, and Kotaku UK put it together as a series of pictures and explanations. I'd love to see like a How It's Made tour of the Nendoroid factory, but these pictures will have to do.

If you've been following our developer videos or forum posts, you know that the Overwatch team has been working hard to finish our upcoming patch which includes Competitive Play (as well as a few other quality-of-life changes). From the beginning, our intent has been to release this patch by the end of June—and since July is nearly here, we wanted to give you a quick status update.

Patching on PC and Console
First, we wanted to be upfront and let players know that we won’t be able to release our Competitive Play patch on all platforms at the same time. The patch will be going live on PC today, while PlayStation 4 and Xbox One players can expect it sometime next week. We don’t have an exact date to share, but we can confirm that the patch is going through approvals right now on both platforms.

We know this isn’t an ideal way to deliver new content, so we’re going to continue to refine our patching processes over the next few months in an effort to sync up our release dates across platforms as closely possible. Although our Battle.net client will always allow us to be more agile on PC, we hope to reach a point where we can release major updates on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 simultaneously.

Shorter Summer Season
We also wanted to let players know that the first season of Competitive Play will be an abbreviated one, lasting only two months instead of the normal three. This is because our Competitive Play patch is launching in the middle of the Summer 2016 season, which technically began on June 1 (a minor side-effect of our real-world season system). As a result, our inaugural season will include approximately 1.5 months of play rather than the full 2.5 months, ending on August 18 across all platforms. The Fall 2016 season will then begin as scheduled following our standard two-week off-season break.

We’re super excited to release Competitive Play, and we made the decision to move ahead with a shorter season for two key reasons. One, we want players to be able to start working towards their Competitive Play rewards as soon as possible. And two, we believe this first season will teach us a lot of about what works well, what doesn't, and what players are really looking for from a competitive system in Overwatch. Competitive Play is definitely one of those features that will take us a few iterations to get right, and by getting the system out there sooner, we can start making improvements based on your feedback sooner too.

To learn more about changes we already have planned for the Fall 2016 season, click here."-source-

Annnd that's about it. Unless you count the fact that my brother and I looked into overbuff last night, and he discovered that (statistically speaking) he's pretty rubbish at Soldier 76 - his main. I discovered I'm in the top 20% of Mercy players! Yay me!

Friday, June 24, 2016

Little Witch Academia was kind of a short test project for anime studio Trigger (which went on to further unbridled awesomeness via Kill la Kill). It was awesome. Then they very successfully Kickstarted a sequel (asked for $150K, got almost $700K), which you might still be able to find on Netflix, that was about an hour long - it was yet awesomer.

Basically, imagine Harry Potter, except Harry is kind of a stupid asshole who's always screwing things up, Ron and Hermione are both socially-stunted supernerds of their chosen disciplines, and Draco Malfoy is actually very capable and really means his best. And they're all girls, because this Hogwarts is an all-girls school.

But it's not like Sailor Moon or Betty & Veronica or some crap where every lady is interchangeable except for their hair - Trigger does an awesome job of really giving each hero a lot of character. Then have it animated by the folks who made Kill la Kill.

Little Witch Academia was so damned good that I actually investigated buying the thing extensively, but it would have been like $200 to import a version straight from Trigger's site and oh my goodness it's right there on the American Amazon!

It's got both the original short and the hour-long sequel and it's fully subbed and it comes with an art book and there's making of docs and both are on Bluray? Fuckyeah.

Oh, so anyway - Trigger are making a Little Witch Academia TV series! Same director - no word on when this thing'll happen, but I don't care - I own Kill la Kill (thanks to Kayla!), It was a very nice...

Yes - that.

I will shortly own the original LWA short and OVA, and when the series happens I'm probably gonna' own a copy of that too.

Muramasa Rebirth, of course, is a forty-hour long tantric orgasm of lovingly-animated, luxuriously realized sprites engaged in lighting-fast, ultrastyle swordplay across an epically-sprawling Metroidvania rendition of Genroku-era Japan, Here's my review from back when I did reviews. If you don't already have it, get it.

Also stealth platforming Roguelike The Swindle is down to six bucks (3-way cross-buy), Tales From the Borderlands is $4.50, Telltale's The Walking Dead: Season 2 is $7.50 and Mad Max is $16.

I love these flash sales. Not enough to stop buying the games I want on day one, but it's still nice to have, y'know?

PS4 + Xbox One - We are incredibly close to wrapping up our QA/pre-cert process with the fine folks at The Research Centaur. We also are very near getting our age ratings in Europe and other territories - a process that takes plenty of time and money and hoops to jump through depending on the ratings body. This means we can submit for certification on both platforms incredibly soon!

Wii U - We are finalizing last details on this port by next month, and will have more info then.

But more importantly (to me),

Vita - A more difficult platform, due to it's limited processing power and memory. Much optimization must be done in order for our game to run smoothly for the entirety of the experience. Luckily, we have external support taking charge on this port so we aren't ripping our own hair out. We're getting closer, but again, this is a Fall release at the earliest considering the amount of effort being poured in on this port.

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Kayla asked me a very pertinent question via email today, which I was tragically (offensively, horrifically!) unable to answer: what version of South Park: The Fractured But Whole comes with the Coon vinyl? I suggested that the collector's edition would probably have it, but admitted I didn't know for sure.

This cannot stand. So let's discover the truth of this!

Your standard edition comes at a standard price, and if pre-ordered digitally off PSN or XBL, you'll get to play The Stick of Truth on your hot new-gen console right now. The Ubisoft store is refusing to show me prices in American (see: real) monies, so I can only tell you that this will set you back $79.99 CDN.

The Gold Edition is digital-only, and thirty dollars more expensive than the standard edition - $119.99 CDN - and comes with fairly few digital goodies:

The complete game.

The Season Pass.

A set of in-game costumes and a bonus perk to get you started.

All pre-orders will also receive an exclusive in-game assistant, Towelie: Your Gaming Bud.

...wonder what's in the season pass? Either way, that's a shitty deal.

The Steelbook Gold Edition contains everything in the above Gold Edition, but also nets you

A Steelbook case (duh).

A set of physical lithographic prints with art from South Park Studio (cool!).

Fortunately, it won't cost you any more - $119.99 CDN.

The Collector's Edition is only ten bucks more expensive than the Gold Edition - $129.99 CDN - and you get a (otherwise very expensive) vinyl fig of the mysterious protector of the night, the Coon!

The complete game.

A set of physical lithographic prints with art from South Park Studios.

A six-inch replica figurine of “The Coon” by UbiCollectibles and ArtToyz.

Towelie: Your Gaming Bud

Finally, if you really want that season pass...

The Collector's Gold Edition is identical to the collector's edition, but it comes with the steelbook case and the season pass for the wholly reasonable priceof $169.99 CDN.

I'd be more down for the Collector's Edition if it came with the Mysterion vinyl instead. I guess I'll just have to buy that separately.

It's only sixty bucks! I'm starting to think that the only way to pre-order The Fractured But Whole, physically, and get The Stick of Truth to play on your PS4/One right now, is to preorder it through Ubisoft's web store. Why do I think that? Well...

It's named as a "Uplay Exclusive" (Ubisoft's online shop) on their site. So maybe I'm just kinda' screwed for The Stick of Truth on PS4 until December.

Which sucks, but whaddaya gonna' do? Aside from asking Ubisoft support, of course.

CHANCE...

...is actually named David.

This is where I write about video games. Beyond the simple pleasure of it, I hope to use this place as a bit of a mental gym to re-develop my writing style - something I seem to have misplaced around the turn of the century.

It will also serve as a personal blog, but for the most part if you enjoy discussion of gaming news, independent reviews and pointless musings, you have come to precisely the right place.

It's my custom to do at least one post per day - but whether it ends up being ten posts of breaking news and a review, or one post complaining about how I have a tummy ache is not set in stone.